Abstract

Background

The water buffalo- Bubalus bubalis holds tremendous potential in livestock sector in many Asian countries, particularly
India. The origin, domestication and genetic structure of the Indian river buffalo
are poorly understood. Therefore, to understand the relationship among the maternal
lineages of Indian river buffalo breeds and their domestication process, we analysed
mitochondrial D-loop region of 217 animals representing eight breeds from eight different
locations in India along with published sequences of Mediterranean buffalo.

Results

The maximum parsimony tree showed one major clade with six internal branches. Reduced
median network revealed expansion from more than one set of haplotypes indicating
complex domestication events for this species. In addition, we found several singleton
haplotypes. Using rho statistics, we obtained a time estimate of 6300 years BP for
the expansion of one set of hapltoypes of the Indian domestic buffalo. A few breed
specific branches in the network indicated an ancient time depth of differentiation
of some of the maternal lineages of river buffalo breeds. The multidimensional display
of breed pairwise FST values showed significant breed differentiation.

Conclusion

Present day river buffalo is the result of complex domestication processes involving
more than one maternal lineage and a significant maternal gene flow from the wild
populations after the initial domestication events. Our data are consistent with the
available archaeological information in supporting the proposition that the river
buffalo was likely to be domesticated in the Western region of the Indian subcontinent,
specifically the present day breeding tracts of the Mehsana, Surati and Pandharpuri
breeds.